


Upside-Down Apple Surprise (or, Patience)

by Rikudera



Series: Apple Pie [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Xeno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikudera/pseuds/Rikudera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new start, exchanging trade secrets, romcom marathons, learning experiences, and turtleducks. Even if everyone still thinks you're varying levels of crazy, getting used to the new universe has never been so interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upside-Down Apple Surprise (or, Patience)

The realization hits you just before lunch. The world does not end. The stars do not fall. You feel a slight melancholy, a distant disappointment, but you do not cry.

You pause, tilt your head to the side, tilt it back, then grin widely. Everyone else in the nutrition block stares at you. Karkat has the added bonus of moderately horrified trepidation. You walk up to Karkat, swiftly squish him in a hug, then declare you're not hungry. Strider comments that he's lost his appetite as well, one of the Lalondes - you're too distracted to discern which - giggles, Kanaya coughs passive-aggressively, and Sollux complains that everyone has the maturity of wigglers.

Karkat is distinctly ruffled at the public display, so you pap him on the head once, right between the horns, then promptly run out of the room. Your moirail chases you down the hallway outside the nutrition block, shouting invective about how whimsical and embarrassing you are. You laugh giddily and sprint until you lose track of him.

You are no longer in love with Tavros Nitram. You have no idea when you stopped; it's hard to remember what it was like to be chained to your feelings for him when your present-tense feels so free. There used to be a time when getting him out of your thoughts was completely repulsive to you. You absolutely refused to accept you'd lost Tavros, even though he didn't love you back, and then he was dead, then part of a crime against nature, and finally a ghost. You didn't want to be the cliche highblood who forgot about the dead lowblood he was flushed for because abandoning someone you were supposed to love - even if they were dead - is the worst thing anybody could do. Now, however, you can let him go because this is a new universe and he was never yours to begin with.

Later that evening, Karkat finds you in front of a fenestrated wall, gazing at one of the new planets and working with your watercolors. You took up painting in the new universe because it was the closest thing to some of your old hobbies that no one would think you were evil for, and you like to make pictures of what you think should go on different planets. You aren't allowed to meddle, but the humans sometimes approve your ideas.

"Karbro, turn your ganderbulbs at these bitchtits creations I got," you grin, setting down your current work-in-progress for the moment and presenting one of your completed pieces to him.

"What is going on with you today?" Karkat demands, frowning. "I've been worried sick, looking all over for you. You just glomped on me - in front of fucking _everyone_ , mind you - then ran away cackling about it, and you've barely eaten anything all day, and I've been trying to get ahold of you for _hours_ , you moron." He's almost pouting. It's adorable.

"Aw, I know you get all cranky and shit sometimes if I do too much stuff with people around, but I just got my motherfuckin elation on so much today I didn't see no other options." You keep smiling because you want to reassure him you're not upset at his shyness. It's hard for you to understand why anyone wouldn't want to know how great a moirail Karkat is, especially since the manner in which you became moirails in the first place was so public, but you behave yourself as much as you can because you don't want to make him uncomfortable. Today you had an important realization, though, and you had to do _something_ until you could find words to explain your feelings. "Check out these flowers I did, they're all periwinkle and shit." Karkat sighs.

"I'm not mad at you, asshole, I'm just perhaps a little fucking miffed at the whole pap-and-dash act." He leans around the painting and pokes at your abdomen. "In the middle of lunch, too, and you were just staring into space with this pan-blank expression. It was really unnerving, and I was going to say something to you, but then there was the aforementioned glompage. You shouldn't be missing meals; you're like a stick made out of nothing but elbows and mood whiplash. I can still feel your ribs too much."

"We can jam it out later-" you suggest, still beaming.

" _Gamzee_ , breakfast was _twelve hours ago_ ," he interrupts sternly.

"-after we eat, I guess," you continue without missing a beat, "but I wanna finish these motherfuckin masterpieces first." You bring the painting with the flowers back into his field of vision. "What do you think of these flowers, Karbro?"

"Oh," Karkat replies, "you said that like, three fucking times and I wasn't even listening to you..." You keep smiling at him until he realizes he's started rambling again. "...Right, sorry. They look like nice flowers. The petals in the middle look like little hearts."

"Don't they just?" you agree. The larger view of the valley you imagine them planted in has a few more heart patterns, cleverly hidden in swirls and spirals. "And check out this other piece I went and did." The flower painting is put down, and a craggy, rocky expanse takes its place. "You know that planet what's all red and orange and got at least twenty tiny moons?" Karkat nods. "Well, I thought those rolling hills on the continent shaped like a bristle paste tube was real unimagnative, so here's what it looks like after a massive motherfuckin earthquake." You think the continent is actually intended to look like something ruder - to mammals, at least - but it's more fun to mock it and think of it as a bristle paste tube. Karkat sighs.

"You know whose pet project that planet is, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, that's why it's all needin some earthquake redesign." Your tone is even blander than the rolling hills, though just as impertinent. Karkat gives you a look that says he knows exactly what you're thinking and will let it slide this one time because there are currently more pressing issues for him to jam with you about. You acknowledge his generosity by changing the subject. The mountains are put aside with the flowers, and you resume work on your latest painting.

"What... _is_ that thing?"

"Well, I was getting my motherfuckin ponder on about the planet everybody's got their meddle on with," you explain, continuing with a speckled green-and-brown pattern where you left off, "the humans, is my meaning." You're not allowed to mess directly with the new troll planet, either, only make suggestions to Kanaya and Aradia that often get dismissed. "And I was thinking on how they need to up and make all those animals before they can put humans in at the end." You speckle some more. Karkat leans over your shoulder to watch. "They got some marshes and estuaries what need a motherfuckin diverse ecosystem, so I thought maybe a fluffy little quackbeast or an unhurried little shellbeast could get plopped in real easy. But I couldn't up and decide which one I liked best-"

"Gamzee..." Karkat facepalms.

"So I said to myself, shiiit, why can't it be both motherfuckin things at once?" you finish, smiling. You like find out the answers to those kinds of questions, even if no one else has expressed agreement before. A few more strokes of the brush and the shell pattern is complete, as well. "It's all tough and practical on the outside, but all soft and fluffy on the inside. And if that ain't the best motherfuckin kind of thing to paint, I don't know what is."

"You are completely impossible, you elusive fuckhead," Karkat sighs, bumping the side of your head with his own lightly. You laugh again because it means he understands. "Will you let me stuff some vitamins down your fucking protein chute already?"

"Sure thing, best friend."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"You think it's bad to forget people?" Karkat gives you a sidelong glance from where he's sitting next to you on the pile. Your knees are bunched up against your chest, and your hands are gripping onto the toes of your shoes. Karkat is sitting like a normal troll - or rather, one who doesn't resemble a stick. You really need to find more sweaters. Or other holiday clothing that is suitably garish.

"Care to elaborate?" Karkat looks as if he can't decide whether you've just sad something overly callous or not. His tone is too careful. You look down at your hands.

"All those motherfuckers what used to be in the bubbles, before the afterlife got itself fixed," you reply. Neither of you mentions that you encouraged the opposite; that's been understood for quite some time, now. "Don't even remember what most of em even motherfuckin looked like." It feels like so long ago. "If they're all at peace and shit now, do we got to get our worry on about em still?" You think about dead souls turning into stardust and sprinkling into new oceans, like at your hive on Alternia, just before the dim seasons started.

"They were our friends," Karkat says, tugging on your arm until you turn to look at him. You've distressed him again. You think about how much of a _mess_ Nepeta made when she died, and how much more annoying it was to collect her blood than it was for some of the others. Her and Eridan, really.

"Do you think it was better with the bubbles and everybody all being young forever?" You feel only a slight contempt for Kurloz and Vriska; the same contempt is directed inwards for comparing yourself to them. "Cause it feels like I can't go anywhere." Karkat is upset, and you can't spit out what's really on your mind. You are a terrible moirail.

"The fucking bubbles aren't the point, you violence-happy moron." Karkat's hands are squeezing your arm reflexively. You think that forcing Nepeta to live instead would have only made her angrier. "Just because they're dead doesn't mean what happened wasn't important. I know your pan is like a sieve sometimes, but it's about..." He really wants you to understand. You need to be better at it than you are. "...It's about respect." You don't want to make him cry again.

"Does this mean I'm not allowed to not be sad about Tavbro no more?" Karkat still has to explain things like this sometimes because even when you don't agree, you trust that he knows better. "Cause I don't up and motherfucking want to have to be doing that no more."

It is always amazing to you, the way Karkat's entirety changes with his emotions. It starts in his oculars, floods across his face, then rips through his body like thunder. There's a certain word you don't use anymore, so you think of it as a present instead.

"Is _that_ what this is about?" he demands, one of his hands releasing its grip on your arm and making contact with your cheek instead. "Why didn't you say that in the first fucking place? You're going to give me an ulcer one of these days. This is an undeniable fact." You frown back at him apologetically. He's giving you googly eyes. "I mean, where in the fucking fabric of paradox space does it say that everyone has to be as incomprehensibly and appallingly cryptic as fucking possible?" You gather him into your arms. Karkat squishes back enthusiastically. "Of _course_ it's fucking okay, I can't believe you even had to ask. It's a _good_ thing to not be obsessed like that anymore."

"I'm real motherfuckin sorry, Karbro."

"Forget the ulcer, I think one of these days my blood pusher is just going to collapse from stress." You bury your nose in his hair. "Out of all the ways to ask that question, you went about it in the most roundabout, misleading manner possible, and...."

"I wouldn't motherfuckin collapse you none," you murmur. Karkat goes silent. Neither of you like to think about the time that is most certainly not being talked about right now.

"...Sorry. I know. It's okay." The two of you stay like that for a while, until you stop feeling like you're going to rattle apart, and then a little more just to be sure. Karkat has a crease on his face from your shirt, and it makes his cheeks look puffy.


End file.
